A lot of tech companies at the Consumer Electronic Show are touting biometrics as a way to make authentication easier and safer.

Source: Nymi

Nymi wristband

In fact, your body may be the key to unlocking everything from your personal devices and personal Internet accounts to even paying your bills, said Karl Martin, CEO of Bionym, the maker of a wearable device that uses certain biometrics to authenticate a person's identity.

"It's about making identity easy. Right now, identity is hard. What if identity were easy, what are the things you could do?" Martin said. "It's this idea that services and your personal accounts and your information can just follow you and all you need is your identity."

Much like how Apple's iPhone 5S uses a fingerprint sensor to authenticate the user's identity, Bionym's bracelet—called the Nymi—uses sensors to capture a person's unique cardiac rhythm, or ECG, to wirelessly unlock or gain control of their devices.

So whenever a person is wearing their Nymi, they automatically have access to their devices without having to enter a password.

But Martin said the company has bigger plans for the technology than just unlocking devices. He wants the Nymi biometric bracelet to serve as a platform for all kinds of consumer purposes.

"When we started to put this concept out there, a lot of people said this is an enterprise security solution. And there's no doubt it can be used for that, but we are much more excited about the consumer potential," he said. "The idea that we could get rid of all these passwords and pins that we manage, but also that it could unleash all kinds of new experiences."

For example, one area Martin is working with partners to implement Nymi's technology is in the retail space.

If someone was wearing their Nymi and walked into a smart retailer, the moment they walked in the store could recognize the person's identity, given the wearer opted in for this information to be shared. This not only opens up new ways for a retailer to personalize the shopping experience, but it also could potentially open up a new way for people to pay.

"Because they know who you are by the time you walk in so by the time you are done shopping and you want to pay for it, we could specify a gesture that says you indicate that you want to pay. You don't need to line up with cash, nevermind even having to tap your wrist, they already know who you are, they just require authorization to pay for it," Martin said.

"It's really about making payments really simple and seamless," he said.

Nymi's platform currently has more than 6,000 developers creating various applications like this. And Bionym is also helping certain partners, which consist primarily of big corporations, develop their own ways of using the device.

Most of the industries that are building applications for Nymi include companies in hospitality, retail, airlines and in automotive, Martin said, however he would not disclose any specific partnerships.

Unlike a lot of wearable device companies that make money off selling the hardware, Bionym is focused on creating new ways of doing business, Martin said.

"Our business ultimately is not going to be about making money off the wristband. We really want the technology and the capability out there," he said.

"We're a platform ultimately, we're in identity management and we're unleashing identity for different applications. There's a variety of ways we can make money in terms of partnerships and everything. For the consumer, we just want to have this capabilities."